Towards an Integration of Quantitative and Qualitative Content Analysis in

Wilhelm Kempf Towards an Integration of Quantitative and Qualitative Content Analysis in Propaganda Research 1. Reconstruction of socio-psychological context as a methodological framework Within the framework of recent studies on U.S. propaganda and psychological warfare during the Contra War in Nicaragua (Kempf, 1990), a communication model was developed according to which it is not so much the facts that count for persuasion and propaganda but more the meaning that they are given. In order to manipulate that meaning, persuasion and propaganda make use of the command and parade aspects of communication which determine the recipient's horizon of consciousness. According to this model, the meaning of a message results from the context in which it is placed. This context is determined by three aspects of the communication: 1. The report aspect conveys information and is, therefore, synonymous with the (propositional) content of the communication. 2. The command aspect refers to what sort of message it is to be taken as (Watzlawick et al., 1967) and includes information about the senders of messages themselves (the "self-manifestation" aspect according to Schulz von Thun, 1981) as well as information about the relationship between the communicators (the "relationship" aspect) 3. The parade aspect, finally, imposes behavior on the recipient and provokes his or her response. As Kracauer (1952, p.642) points out, "most communications are not so much fixed entities as ambivalent challenges." They challenge the audience "to absorb them and react to them."